Successful Bum Showcase: Cheeseman

(Earned over $11,000 WiFi Money in 3 months through BowTiedBum Tactics!)

Intro

In this edition of the Successful Bum Showcase series, I am proud to introduce Cheeseman. One of the highest quarterly earners in the community and an exciting rising star to watch. Future is very bright for this individual, having already earned over $11K+ in his first three months!

Below, we’ll break down his journey and how he’s been able to be so successful.

Q&A With Cheeseman

1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your previous experience with credit cards?

-I come from some of our roughest urban communities, spent most of my life under the poverty line and built a large family for nowadays. I am in my early thirties and made it out of poverty, have a good living but need to make more or I am NGMI. My experience with credit cards is very limited. I only knew of 0% interest promotions for 6-12 months. I knew nothing about mileage, hotel, and cash back points. Clueless. I was happy with my Citi Thank You Card earning 1% back and cashing out $25 gift cards here and there, and my getting 0% interest on Home Depot store card.

2.  Were there any misconceptions or apprehensions you had about the process initially?

My biggest misconception of credit card churning was not believing or understanding I can spend the amount of money required to hit SUBS. I’ve been programmed to never spend money at that scale in a short amount of time. I was fearful to spend that amount and send products to buying groups.

 3. How did you discover BowTiedBum?

I heard about credit card churning from Mike Cernoivch on Twitter. He explained it so easily. Tweet here. I had churning in the back of my head for over a year and following him lead me to the BowTied community which ultimately lead me to BowTiedBum. I followed for a few months then purchased the Substack in August of 2023.

4.  In what ways has the community helped or guide you in your journey?
Are there any specific tips or advice that you found particularly
useful?

I am so glad I joined the community at a time the Slack Channel was active for about 8 months. The articles were very helpful, but I need confirmation this hustle works. I was engaged with the Slack channel very early on and the anons on there was incredibly helpful and boosted my confidence to go for it. Hearing others were doing the same thing, gave me the confirmation I needed. Writing this, I forgot about my subscription- it’s cheap and paid for itself early on. What I found the most helpful was understanding how to maximize cash back. Both the Fluz method and going through cashbackmonitor.com, earning cash back from Top Cash Back, Rakuten, Retail Me Not. Let’s just say I get about 8-9% back on mostly all of my spending.

5. What was your biggest "Oh shit, this is crazy" moment?

Biggest “oh shit” moment was when I hit my two AMEX subs in a week. Fresh off an Amazon shutdown I went to work and spent about 19k in about 10 days. Hit two SUBS (202,000 AMEX Points or $2002). For me, that is a ton of spend in a short amount of time.

6. Can you share some of your biggest wins?

My biggest win was exceeding my 10k goal in only one quarter. I did this by being aggressive and spent money through the buying groups and gift card reselling sites. I must add free gas as well. Speedway and Kroger points is a wild part of the hustle that I did not foresee but subsidizing my gas bill has been amazing. At my rate, I won’t be paying for gas a 2024 and got $2 off gas for all most of November 2023 and all of December (Kroger Points).

7. How long did it take to achieve these milestones?

I started churning late September 2023. Hitting 10k is a minimum goal and requires very little work. Hitting 11k in one quarter required a lot of tracking but it go to the point of going to a buying group, linking to Amazon, heading to Speedway, and hitting order. Then waiting to pay off card. By the third month it became a couple minutes of day scanning buying groups and gift card reselling sites and following the process.

8. Any dream redemptions or experience you're working towards?

For this year, I want to take my family on a nice vacation. We are not a vacation family, and it has been out of our reach. But now, I know this hustle, will spend aggressively and smart. After I hit my SUBS on 2nd CIC and CIU I will target the hotel and flight cards and hit those SUBS. Simultaneously, I will continue to hit biz card SUBS to subsidize my living expenses, and not pay out of pocket for some expenses. I also have a P-2, who has hit SUBS for CIC and CIU, and in pace to hit an Amex SUB and CIP 1k SUB. I make money off referrals as well and we are going to use those rewards for hotels and flights.

9. Would you recommend that others join BowTiedBum?

I definitely recommend others join the Bum community and you must join the Slack channel. My biggest regret is not finding BowTiedBum and credit card churning sooner. This is what everyone says, and it is so true. I spent on average about 5-6k per year of organic spend on my Citi Thank You card for over a decade and only got 1% back ($60/year). Even with only organic spend, I left thousands of dollars on the table over a decade. I don’t even like to think about. I once had a job that would allow me to use my personal credit card to and be reimbursed. The average monthly spending was like 20-30k. I asked the company to give me a credit card because I hated reimbursement paperwork. I do not even like to think about what could have been to cycle through cards with that amount of spend. Lastly- for those reading this, especially newcomers, please understand that these are reward programs advertised by credit card companies and banks. They exist to take advantage of them, and you should do so. Why? To make more money.

What’s next: Continuing to hit SUBS, get a nice family vacation in 2024, and scale Bum methods to Amazon Arbitrage and move on from Buying Groups and Gift Card re-selling. And make more money.

Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.